Practice, Toenails, and Cockroaches

So, we had practice today. Many people weren't there, but some were. Enough to run a couple of teams, anyway. The dogs did reasonably well. Spoiled One was going for the tug, and tugging very enthusiastically. I used a tennis ball as a crutch, but he's definately improved on that. Also, he did not create any passing issues. In fact, the littlest dog on the team, who is still refining her passes, whipped right by him, even when I released him way too early and they passed on the jump. His box turn wasn't, but I hadn't been working that like I should. I may have to just keep working that in homework.

Weasel was running fast, because she was running first and right before her Idol Dog, so she was in flying ferret heaven. With her running first and the Idol dog running second, they timed at 8.1 seconds, which I thought was cool. Of course you have to factor in things like the timer starts when the first dog breaks the beam, while in tournaments it starts and you have to hit it right to minimize the delay between the timer start and the dog crossing the start line, but hopefully, I'll do okay with that. Other factors weigh in the other direction: we're practicing on grass and an uneven surface, the Idol Dog was 10 - 15 feet late on her pass (because Weasel is such a spaz, she's hard to judge where to pass). It might be kind of fun to run them in pairs at the next U-FLI tournament we go to. Of course, I would also love to run Spoiled One and Weasel in pairs. There are a number of obsticals to that goal. Weasel usually runs with the team, so it might be too many heats for her to run pairs as well. I can't run two different dogs in the same race. However, someone offered to work Weasel at practice a bit, and seemed to have fun, so maybe I could sucker someone into running her and I could run Spoiled One? Hmmmm. . . .

On the way home, they each got a plain Lottaburger. As they sprawled in the living room, sated and tired, I lopped the tippy tips off of their toenails. Because I keep them in when I am at work, now, they don't get the exercise of running the fence and discussing politics with the neighbor dogs. This is probably the first time Spoiled One's nails have been long enough to trim. FWIW, the drimmel sucks, use chopper type clippers. Just my opinion.

Weasel is always bringing me little gifts to play with. She finds rubber bands and sets them on my knee and gives me the pleading, hopeful look, trying to entice me into a game of tug o war. Or she drops the unopened mail at my feet, checking to see if it's permissible to chew it up. Bottle caps and bits of scraps of things are always appearing around my feet as potential items to be tossed and caught for doggie amusement. Lately, she's been finding the cat's toy mice and offering them up. It's so cute. Well, this morning, I let her in from her morning constitutional in the yard, and she presented me with a cockroach. A LIVE cockroach.